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We have been waiting for a main course more than 20 minutes. I’m starving. In a short talk we learn who ordered what and it seems to be clear which course results in waiting so long. The suspect is a duck course. We almost know. How?

How often we think that through observation and our intelligent deduction we just know. It’s obvious. The duck dish needs much effort, doesn’t it? And more we’re waiting, more we’re sure that the duck dish is guilty. More, guilty is the person who ordered it!

It seems to be so obvious that we don’t have to ask. We just know. Questions can show that we don’t know and we want to be seen as ‘person who knows’. Questions are waste of time as we think faster and know faster without spending additional time for questions. Questions mean ’emotional labour’ to start a conversation, to ask, to listen, to get more info to think about. If you think and behave this way, stop and re-think.

Why? No questions mean that you would never be sure if you really know. Find this difference between knowing and guessing. Without asking you cannot know. Practise additional questions and you will feel difference yourself.

Epilog of the duck story:

Finally I decide to ask waiter why we have to wait for food so long and which dish is guilty. His answer is surprising as the most guilty is prawns with vegetable and rice. Would you guess? It is hard to guess that rice needs much time to be just perfect, but it is easy to know that the duck dish is guilty. And I am the person who asked the waiter. I am the person who ordered the prawn dish.